Jerry O’Connell still avoids Tom Cruise years after Scientology diss

Church of Scientology taken to court over fraud & extortion in Belgium.

Scientology could be banned from the country of Belgium if senior members are found guilty of a variety of charges, including, extortion, fraud, running a criminal organization and violating privacy. Leah Remini, who’s become as famous for being an ex-Scientologist as she is as an actress, is likely to set the church’s teeth on edge again with her latest broadside, this time taking on the religion’s leading celebrity adherent, Tom Cruise. “Being critical of Tom Cruise is being critical of Scientology itself… you are evil,” Remini says in an interview with ABC’s Dan Harris, airing on the network Friday (10 p.m.

The Belgian branch of the Church of Scientology went to trial in Brussels on Monday, facing charges of fraud and extortion in the wake of investigations into the church’s fundraising and recruitment practices. Jerry O’Connell revealed on Tuesday, Oct. 27, that he once hid from Tom Cruise after he made fun of the actor’s religion, Scientology, in a 2008 Funny or Die video. “I have not run into him. According to The Guardian, the country launched two investigations — one in 1997 and another in 2008 — looking into complaints about the church’s inner workings, as well as allegedly bogus job offers manufactured by the church to recruit new members. Complaints from former members’ led to an investigation in 1997, with a subsequent inquiry in 2008 exploring allegations that fake jobs were being offered in Belgium in an effort to convert people to the faith, the Huffington Post reported.

Remini is a longtime critic of Scientology but she’s now flogging her new memoir about her 30 years in one of America’s most controversial — and celebrity driven — religions. The initial investigation into the church’s financial activities was opened by the Belgian authorities in 1997, after a number of complaints were submitted by former members.

I hid for as long as I could,” O’Connell, 41, recalled during the “Allegedly with Theo Von & Matthew Cole Weiss” podcast. “When it was time to disperse, I literally was the first at valet.” In the three-minute 2008 parody, the dad of two mimicked a past interview Cruise did about Scientology, even imitating the star’s famous cackle. She tells ABC’s 20/20 that Cruise was one of the factors that led her to break from church, which she joined with her family when she was just a girl (she’s 45). O’Connell — who also produced the footage — admitted Tuesday that he still “sort of avoids” Cruise, but doesn’t believe there would be a confrontation if they ever came face-to-face. “It was rude what I did. She also shared some of the inside details of her more than three decades as a Scientologist, explaining the mindset that takes form, and the difficulties that come along with leaving the religion behind. “People need to understand. The church’s mindset is such it interprets an attack on Cruise as an attack on the church, she says. “As time goes on, you start to lose touch with the real world,” she says in the interview. “The mindset becomes ‘Us against them.’ The decision to leave is you are giving up everything you have ever known and everything you have worked for your whole life.

She quit the church in 2013, saying she objected to policies that forbade challenges to church leader David Miscavige’s management, or to the alleged abuse of some members. She also objected to the church’s practice of branding those who leave as “suppressive persons,” and forcing their remaining family members to cease all contact. In August, Russian police sources said a raid on the church’s Moscow headquarters earlier this year revealed spy equipment installed in reconciliation rooms. She said she didn’t like how her daughter’s life was starting to resemble her own much-resented Scientology-centric childhood with her mother at a church compound in Florida. “It comes as no surprise that someone as self-absorbed as Leah Remini with an insatiable craving for attention would exploit her former faith as a publicity stunt by rewriting her history with it, including omitting that she was participating in a program to remain a Scientologist by her own choice, as she was on the verge of being expelled for her ethical lapses,” church spokeswoman Karin Pouw told USA TODAY in a statement. The group, which has many celebrities, such as Hollywood stars Tom Cruise and John Travolta, among its members, has its central headquarters in Los Angeles and boasts 12 million members around the world.

He never joined, but he was invited to an afterparty at the Celebrity Center in L.A. two decades ago. “There’s no rules about drinking or not in Scientology. Those people party,” O’Connell said during the podcast. “Everyone was walking in the gates, and you’re sort of drunkenly stumbling and you’re happy to not have to drive anywhere.